Contemporary Issues in Accounting - Compliance with AASB Conceptual Framework by Orora Limited

This report explores the compliance with the standards and principles of accounting standard of the AASB conceptual framework by Orora Limited. It analyses the objectives, recognition criteria and characteristics of financial information. The company's financial statements are evaluated to determine compliance. Subject: Accounting, Course Code: N/A, Course Name: N/A, College/University: N/A.

Running head: CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING
Contemporary Issues in Accounting
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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Abstract
The main aim of this report is to explore the compliance with the standards and principles of
accounting standard of the AASB conceptual framework by one of the top ASX 100 listed
companies that is Orora Limited. This report takes attempt to analyse the objectives of
conceptual framework. It also evaluates the recognition criteria of conceptual framework. Lastly,
it also analyses the characteristics of financial information.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Conceptual Framework Objectives..................................................................................................3
Recognition Criteria.......................................................................................................................10
Fundamental Qualitative Characteristics.......................................................................................14
Enhancing Qualitative Characteristics...........................................................................................15
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................16
References......................................................................................................................................18

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Introduction
Business entities are required to carry out different kind business operations for the
achievement of the goals and objectives. One of such operations is Accounting and Financial
reporting related business operations. Accounting refers to the process of maintaining the
financial records of the companies. It is required for the accountants of the business entities to
comply with the standards, principles, rules and regulations of the accounting standards in order
to carry on their accounting operations in the most proper manner. This same aspect is also
applicable for the business entities of Australia having listed under the Australian Stock
Exchange (ASX). It can be seen that both the Australian Accounting Standard Board (AASB)
and International Accounting Standard Board (IASB) have introduced an accounting conceptual
framework in order to bring accuracy and transparency in the accounting process of the
Australian companies (aasb.gov.au 2018). This particular conceptual framework consists of
regulations, standards and principles and standards that the Australian companies are required to
follow at the time of their accounting operations. The main aim of this report is to explore the
compliance with the standards and principles of accounting standard of the AASB conceptual
framework by one of the top ASX 100 listed companies. Thus, for the completion of this report,
Orora Limited is taken into consideration. Orora Limited is an Australia based company provides
packaging solution and it is enlisted in ASX top 100 in the name of ORA (ororagroup.com
2018).
Conceptual Framework Objectives
According to the earlier discussion, it is the obligation on the business entities of
Australia to follow the standards, principles, rules and regulations of the AASB conceptual

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framework in order to bring accuracy and transparency in the financial reporting process. In the
conceptual framework of AASB, there is the mention of three major objectives for the
development of financial reporting. In the first objective, AASB states that the companies need
to develop their financial statements in such a manner so that they can express the financial
position of the business entities. For this objective, balance sheet or the statement of financial
position is an useful statement (aasb.gov.au 2018). In the second objective, AASB states that the
relevant financial statements of the companies must include the information for expressing the
financial performance of the business entities. For this objective, income statement is a necessary
financial statement (aasb.gov.au 2018). In the third objective, AASB states that the business
entities have the obligation to provide all the required information so that the change in financial
performance of the entities can be identified (aasb.gov.au 2018). For this purpose, the statement
of change in equity and the statement of cash flows are the necessary statements. Now, it is
required to analyse that whether Orora Limited satisfies these objectives or not.

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(Source: ororagroup.com 2018)
The above figure represents the latest statement of financial position of Orora Limited
that can be found in the 2017 Annual Report of the company. In this statement, the company has
provided all the information about their economic resources like assets, liabilities, equity and
others that helps in the determination of the financial position of the entity. In addition, the
company has also provided the necessary notes to support the information in the above statement
(ororagroup.com 2018).

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(Source: ororagroup.com 2018)

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(Source: ororagroup.com 2018)
The above figures are the income statement and statement of comprehensive income of
Orora Limited for the latest year-end and these statements can be found in the latest annual
report of the company. The above figures contain information about the revenue, expenses and
profit of Orora Limited that helps in the determination of the financial performance of the entity.
In addition, to support this information, the company has also provided supporting financial
notes (ororagroup.com 2018).

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(Source: ororagroup.com 2018)

9CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING
(Source: ororagroup.com 2018)
The above figures are the statement of change in equity and the statement of cash flow of
Orora Limited. From the above figures, one can obtain information on the change in the financial
aspects of the company like the change in net profit, change in comprehensive income and others
that helps the decision making process of the users. Moreover, Orora Limited has also provided

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the necessary noted related to these statements for providing greater understanding of the users
(ororagroup.com 2018).
Hence, from the above analysis, it can be seen that Orora Limited has provided all the
necessary information through different financial statements so that the users can get all of their
required information. This aspect works well towards the satisfaction of the AASB conceptual
framework objectives.
Recognition Criteria
Apart from the objectives of financial statements, the AASB conceptual framework also
includes some basic criteria for the recognition and measurement of major financial elements;
they are asset, liability, equity, revenue and expense. While preparing the financial statements,
the accountants are required to consider these recognition criteria. In the recognition process,
there are other major aspects. First, all the necessary and relevant information about the above-
mentioned financial elements is needed to be considered at the time of recognition. The second
aspects is faithful representation as the business entities must present all the information about
these elements in the most faithful manner.
The specific obligation lies on Orora Limited that the company is needed to comply with
the AASB recognition criteria. It implies that the company must follow the given definition by
AASB conceptual framework. These are explained below:
Asset: The major assets of Orora limited are Property, Plant and equipment (PPE), intangible
assets, trade receivables and inventories. As per the standard of AASB 116 Property, Plant and
Equipment under section 334 of the Corporations Act 2001, Orora Limited recognizes PPE at

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the cost value after deducting depreciation and impairment losses. Straight-line method is used
for depreciation purpose (aasb.gov.au 2018).
(Source: ororagroup.com 2018)
Orora Limited has different intangible assets like goodwill, computer, software, licence
and customer relationship. As per the standards of AASB 138 Intangible Assets and IAS 38
Intangible Assets, the company recognizes these intangible assets on fair value (aasb.gov.au
2018).
(Source: ororagroup.com 2018)
As per the principles of AASB 9 Financial Instruments, Orora Limited recognizes their
trade and other receivables based on fair value and amortized costs with the help of effective
interest rate (aasb.gov.au 2018).

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(Source: ororagroup.com 2018)
According to the standards of AASB 102 Inventories, inventories of the company are
recognized based on cost and net realizable value (aasb.gov.au 2018).
(Source: ororagroup.com 2018)
Liabilities: The major liabilities of Orora limited are trade payables, interest bearing liabilities
and provisions. For the recognition of trade and other payable, the company follows the principle
of AASB 9 Financial Instruments and recognizes them as financial liabilities at amortized costs
(aasb.gov.au 2018).
(Source: ororagroup.com 2018)
In Orora Limited, interest-bearing liabilities include borrowings from the financial
institutes and they are recognized based on fair value of the consideration received after
deducting direct transaction costs (ororagroup.com 2018).

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(Source: ororagroup.com 2018)
The company recognizes their business provisions when there is a present legal
obligation due to the happening of any past business events. The company determines provisions
by discounting the future cash flows at a pre-tax rate (ororagroup.com 2018).
(Source: ororagroup.com 2018)
Equity: As per the standard of AASB 1004 Contributions, Orora Limited classify their ordinary
shares as equity and they do not have any par value (aasb.gov.au 2018).
(Source: ororagroup.com 2018)

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Revenue: According to the standard of AASB 118 Revenue, the company uses fair value for the
received consideration. In case of sale of goods, the company recognizes revenue from sales of
goods when there is a transfer of ownership to the customers (aasb.gov.au 2018).
(Source: ororagroup.com 2018)
Expenses: In case of Orora Limited, expenses are recognized at the time of their occurrences.
From the above discussion, it can be observed that Orora Limited follows the principles
and standards of AASB conceptual framework for the recognition of the above-mentioned
financial elements.
Fundamental Qualitative Characteristics
According to the conceptual framework of AASB, the financial information of the
business entities must contain some fundamental qualitative characteristics as these
characteristics make the financial information more useful and purposeful. They are Relevance
and Faithful Representation (Nobes and Stadler 2015). Financial information must have the
capability to make difference in the decision-making process of the users and relevant financial
information is capable enough to make difference in the decision-making process of the users. It
needs to be mentioned that the relevant financial has the feature of marginality as the removal of

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this information can cause material misstatements in the financial statements (Gebhardt, Mora
and Wagenhofer 2014). Apart from relevance, AASB also puts the obligation on the Australian
business entities to represent their financial information in the most faithful manner. In order to
be faithfully represented, the financial information of the business entities must have three other
characteristics; they are complete, neutral and free from error (Barth 2013).
From the earlier part of the report, it can be observed that the company provides all the
current and relevant financial information of their business with the help of different financial
statements like income statement, statement of financial position, statement of change in equity,
statement of cash flow and others (ororagroup.com 2018). In addition, Orora Limited also
publishes necessary financial notes to provide justification and clarification. In addition, the
auditor statements shows that the company follows the standards of AASB, IASB and IFRS for
the predation and presentation of their financial statements (ororagroup.com 2018). All these
aspects support the existence of fundamental qualitative characteristics in the financial
information of Orora Limited.
Enhancing Qualitative Characteristics
Apart from the above characteristics, AASB has provided some other characteristics and
they are called the enhancing qualitative characteristics. They are Comparability, Verifiability,
Timeliness and Understandability (Kulikova, Grigoryeva and Gubaidullina 2014).
Comparability is a major characterise of financial information as assists the users in the
identification of the similarities and the differences in the financial performance of the company.
There is a need to have some degree of comparability to support the fundamental qualitative
characteristics. Verification can be direct and indirect (Barth 2013). In the presence of this

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characteristic, users can reach to a consensus by applying their knowledge and independent
observation. The characteristic of timeliness assures the timely delivery of financial information
to the users. In this context, it needs to be mentioned that the older information has less value
than the new information. Proper classification, characterization and presentation of the financial
information can be done with the help of understandability characteristic. It is the obligation on
Orora Limited to comply with these characteristics (Bohušová 2014).
In order to fulfil the fundamental qualitative characteristics, financial information must
possesses the enhancing qualitative characteristics. There is not any measured process for the
application of these enhancing characteristics. In case of Orora Limited, the company uses same
accounting methods for the financial valuation and computation purposes (ororagroup.com
2018). For this reason, it is possible for the users to compare the financial information of Orora
Limited. The aspect of comparability is necessary to have verifiability characteristic. As per the
earlier discussion, Orora limited represents their financial statements faithfully and thus, it can be
easily verifiable. There is a particular time in a year when Orora Limited publishes their financial
information through annual report and they are easily accessible. The simple format of the
financial statements helps in bringing easy understandably for the users to easily understand the
provide information (ororagroup.com 2018).
Conclusion
The above whole discussion supports the fact that Orora Limited complies with all the
required principles and standards of the conceptual framework of AASB and IASB at the time of
the development and preparation of their financial statements. More specifically, Orora Limited
has fully achieved the objectives of AASB conceptual framework. After that, the company also

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complies with the recognition criteria of AASB conceptual framework for the recognition of the
major financial items. Lastly, the financial information of Orora Limited possesses both the
fundamental as well as qualitative characteristics of financial information.
Based on the whole discussion, some recommendations are provided below:
 In order to avoid any kind of accounting issues in future, Orora Limited is highly
needed to stay complied with the standards and principles of AASB, IASB and IFRS.
 For the recognition of major financial items, Orora Limited must stay complied with
the recognition criteria of AASB conceptual framework.

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References
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[Accessed 13 Apr. 2018].
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Research, 45(5), pp.572-601.

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Ororagroup.com. (2018). Annual Report 2017. [online] Available at:
https://www.ororagroup.com/system/downloads/files/000/000/198/original/
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